


To Last Your Whole Life

by Innwich



Category: Maurice (1987), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Humor, M/M, Paternal Lestrade, Surprise Pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 09:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2264730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innwich/pseuds/Innwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John met one of Lestrade’s friends, and Sherlock wouldn’t stop making snide remarks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Last Your Whole Life

“Fuck me,” Sherlock said under his breath.

“Sorry?” John said, peering at a dull green forest in a painting that he passed. He never knew why hotels like to hang plain landscape paintings on their walls.

The carpeted hallway was quiet. It was nearly empty, asides from a few uniformed police officers doing interviews at the doors of some other rooms further down the hallway and Lestrade talking to an older blond man in front of a room roped off by police tapes.

“He is here,” Sherlock said. His mouth was set in a grim line

“Who is here?” John said.

“Him.”

“Lestrade?”

“No,” Sherlock said impatiently. He nodded at the direction of Lestrade and the blond man again. “Him.”

The blond man was dressed in a dark suit. He was taller than Lestrade, and probably taller than Sherlock too, if not for the slight stoop of his shoulders. As he was, he stood as tall as Sherlock.

He wasn’t particularly threatening. If anything, his greying hair and forehead lines gave him an air of worn tiredness. He looked more like a retired country gentleman than a criminal mastermind.

“What about him?”

“You’ll see,” Sherlock said darkly. He raised his voice. “Lestrade.”

“Hey, Sherlock. Hi, John,” Lestrade greeted when Sherlock and John approached. “Bit late, aren’t you?”

“John wanted to get a ‘proper’ lunch before we left,” Sherlock said.

John didn’t bother mentioning the experiment that Sherlock had insisted on finishing. The chicken tikka masala was sitting too snugly in John’s stomach for him to feel like protesting.

“Well, too bad,” Lestrade said cheerily. “Anderson was happy to have missed you.”

Sherlock scowled. “Just let me start working.”

“The body is on the sofa. All yours.” Lestrade held out a small cardboard box, out of which Sherlock pulled out a pair of latex gloves. From where he was standing in the hallway, John could see dark splashes on the pale green walls in the room.

Sherlock walked up to the blond man at the door, pulling on the gloves.

“Hullo,” the stranger started to say.

“Hmm.” Sherlock pushed past him without so much as a glance, and ducked below the police tape to enter the room.

“Sherlock,” Lestrade said, following Sherlock, leaving the blond man in the hallway. “Do we have to have that talk again?”

The room was too small for more than two people to be squeezed in there, so John stayed outside the police tape. Instead, keeping Sherlock’s words in mind, John turned his attention to the stranger.

The blond man was still standing by the door, watching Lestrade nagging Sherlock. Now that he was standing closer to the man, John caught a faint scent of sunscreen.

London had been cloudy for the last few days.

Strange.

“Sorry about Sherlock. He could be rude sometimes,” John said.

“It’s all right. I’m used to it,” the stranger said. He smiled, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Are you Sherlock’s new flatmate?”

“Yes, I am. John Watson,” John said, surprised. Sometimes it felt like the whole of London knew about Sherlock’s living arrangements. He took the man’s hand, and was returned with a firm, short handshake.

“Maurice Hall.”

“Are you assigned to this case too?”

Maurice chuckled. “No, I’m not a police officer. I’m here on personal matters.” 

“Oh. Are you a friend of Greg?” John said. He looked into the room where Lestrade was still talking to Sherlock. Finally, Sherlock heaved an exasperated sigh, and that stopped the nagging.

As Lestrade bustled out of the room, his face brightened. “John, I’ve been wanting you to meet him. This is Maurice Hall. He’s my-“

“Husband,” Sherlock interjected from within the room. “The rings, John. Look.”

Lestrade and Maurice were wearing matching silver bands with bevelled edges. John said, “Right.”

“Remember what I told you?” Sherlock said.

John did. He recalled, after running into Lestrade a few more times on crime scenes, asking Sherlock whether Lestrade had a wife or husband.

“Are you always so interested in the love life of everyone you meet?” Sherlock had said.

“No,” John had said, probably too defensively. “Lestrade has a wedding ring. I was just wondering about it.”

“Are you a tall, brooding, upper-middle-class English gentleman who is fairly well-off?”

John had puzzled at the strange question. For some reason, an image of Mycroft had risen unbidden in his mind, but he hadn’t been stupid enough to voice his thoughts. “Well, no. Asides from the part where I’m English, I mean.” 

“Then no, you’re not his type,” Sherlock had said, turning his attention back to the glowing blue liquid in his test tube. “Lestrade will never agree to commit adultery anyway.”

“What the hell? I wasn’t planning to ask him out, Sherlock!”

“Why else would you need information about his marriage?” Sherlock had said, genuinely puzzled.

That had quickly put an end to the conversation.

“Right,” John said, staring up at Maurice. A tall, brooding, upper-middle-class English gentleman who was fairly well-off. John saw what Sherlock meant now.

“Young lovers. Ran away together. Boring,” Sherlock added.

“Sherlock!” John and Lestrade said at the same time.

“Actually, there was more to the story than that,” Maurice said, looking more than a little amused, “We met on a hunting trip on my friend’s estate.”

“Made me do all your dirty work, you did,” Lestrade said with a teasing smile.

“I didn’t know you hunt,” John said to Lestrade.

“I don’t, not really,” Lestrade said. “I reloaded guns and pointed him to rabbits and ‘yes, sir’s while he had fun doing the shooting.”

“It wasn’t as much fun as you made it out to be. It was raining.” Maurice sounded wistful when he added, “A dreary day for a birthday.”

Lestrade rubbed small circles into Maurice’s back. “The next day went better though, didn’t it?”

Maurice leaned into the touch. “Better than I thought it would.”

It didn’t take a lot to guess what happened. John couldn’t help smiling. “That’s-”

“-enlightening. Now you know Lestrade is good with guns, John,” Sherlock said from the hotel room. “If you know what I mean.”

“Sherlock!” Lestrade shouted, the tips of his ears turning a bright red.

“-very sweet,” John said.

“Been to South America lately, haven’t you, Maurice?” Sherlock called.

“Yes, I have. Actually, I just got off the plane,” Maurice said.

“I know. I can smell the sunscreen on your collar,” Sherlock said. “Your shirt and trousers are creased. You came here straight from the airport. You were served chicken pasta for dinner, and omelette and toast for breakfast. For both meals, you chose red wine, which was sub-par, of course. ”

“Sherlock,” Lestrade said warningly.

“Did you have a good trip?” John interrupted.

“I have been helping Greg’s family with their investments for the last few months. I got off the plane this morning,” Maurice said, looking at Lestrade. “It’s been awhile since I last saw Greg.”

“I don’t know why you wouldn’t use Skype,” Lestrade said.

“It’s not the same,” Maurice insisted.

They gazed at each other so intently that John felt like he was intruding on a private moment. He had a sudden urge to cough politely.

“Perpetrator of domestic violence. He was beating his wife. The sister-in-law killed him. Weapon is the letter opener from the front office downstairs.” Sherlock walked out of the room and pulled off his gloves with sharp snaps.

“Good. I’ll get an arrest warrant,” Lestrade said, without breaking his gaze with Maurice. Sherlock shot them an annoyed glare when neither looked in his directions.

Sherlock turned to John. “His name isn’t really Lestrade.”

“What?” John said.

Lestrade groaned. “Sherlock.”

“Changed it to hide from a powerful man,” Sherlock mused. “A man residing here in London with possible ties to the Metropolitan police.”

“How could you possibly know that?” John said in amazement.

“He stole my file,” Lestrade said, unimpressed. “Mycroft told me.”

“Mycroft shouldn’t keep confidential files in his house if he didn’t want me to find them.”

“You mean his house with the fancy security system,” John said.

“To which I have the codes, yes,” Sherlock said.

“The codes that you stole from his security guards,” John said.

“That’s what I said.”

“I still get weird looks every time you call me Alec in front of my team,” Lestrade grumbled.

Sherlock said, “Right, because your ‘new’ name is… Gary.”

“Greg. It’s been Greg for the last thirty years.” Lestrade sighed. “You know what? Why don’t we just stick with Lestrade?”

“Fine.” Sherlock crossed his arms. “Alec.”

“I’ve always liked the sound of Alec,” Maurice said.

Sherlock scowled.

Lestrade grinned. It showed off the dimple in his cheek and took years off his face. He put a hand on Maurice’s lower back. “I think you should remind me how much you like it again.”

“Let’s go, John,” Sherlock said, walking away. “I don’t want to have to bleach my eyes when we get home.”

There was a fond but loud “piss off, Sherlock” from Lestrade as John caught up with Sherlock in the hotel lift.

“There is something I can’t figure out,” John said.

“Only something?”

“Don’t push it,” John said lightly. “I just don’t understand why you don’t like Maurice. He’s a decent man.”

“Don’t you see it?” Sherlock stared at John like he was being stupid. Again.

“See what?”

Sherlock huffed. “The obvious: Maurice keeps Lestrade from doing his job. Lestrade is distracted whenever Maurice is around. He doesn’t pay attention to details. Anyone with half a brain can see the sister-in-law did it.”

“How is that different from usual, again?”

Sherlock rounded on John. “Lestrade didn’t ask for my deductions, John!”

“You’re jealous,” John said, smiling slowly as realisation dawned on him “You’re jealous Greg pays more attention to Maurice than to you.”

“No,” Sherlock said with an unconvincing scowl. “I don’t understand why Lestrade keeps telling me to be nicer to Maurice.”

“You could be nicer to Maurice.”

“You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“You know,” John said, “I used to live next door to a kid. He had the worst one-sided rivalry with his step-mum, who baked the best cookies I’ve ever tasted. He used to moan about how his dad didn’t look at his arts and craft projects anymore.”

Sherlock cut in, “Don’t be ridiculous. Lestrade is not my dad.”

John laughed. “Yeah, he kind of is.”


End file.
